Theme Time Radio Hour is coming to 6 Music! Oh, I know all the publicity this week centred around the programme's debut on Radio 2 over Christmas - after all, the incongruity of His Bobness sharing a network with Wogan is too good a story to miss. But once the festivities are over and 2007 is upon us, Bob's regular radio home in the UK will be the BBC's 6 Music, every Friday night.
Why the excitement? Well, because this new weekly radio show hosted by Bob Dylan appears to transcend anything one might feel about the man himself, or even his music. As an exasperated Alexis Petrides recently , the world divides into people who regard Dylan as a genius beyond criticism, and those who wonder what the fuss is about.
But a quick glance through the playlists on the web page makes it apparent that none of our preconceptions matter. However we feel about him as a singer - and whatever he turns out to be like as a presenter - his musical knowledge is clearly vast and wide-ranging.
Each weekly one-hour show is devoted to a specific theme - and the list alone makes a kind of bizarre folk poetry: baseball, bible, cars, coffee, coffee, dance, devil, divorce, dog, drinking, eyes, father, flower, food, friends neighbours, gun, halloween, jail, map, mother, radio, Rich Man Poor Man, school, sleep, summer, telephone, time, water, weather, wedding .
..
And Dylan's selections hop blithely across genres and generations - from Bing Crosby to Blur, Cab Calloway to Carole King, Loretta Lynn to Lulu.
In an age when music gets hemmed in by ever-narrower categorisations, it's refreshing to hear of a radio show where Charles Mingus rubs shoulders with the Detroit Cobras, Randy Newman with Django Reinhart.
By a simple twist of fate the person who offered Bob carte blanche to play such wildly diverse music on his show is none other than Lee Abrams, chief programming officer at satellite station XM Radio. Yes, that same consultant whose company Burkhart/Abrams helped create the stultifying AOR stranglehold on American FM radio in the 1970s and 80s - and who pioneered the tyranny of branding and demographics that makes so many radio stations sound the way they do today.
Still, there's none so righteous as the repented sinner - and Abrams has written an awestruck and enthusiastic about his efforts to reach Dylan and persuade him to make truly eclectic old-time radio shows.
Interestingly, the UK syndication of Theme Time Radio Hour may have unintended benefits for listeners in America, where the programme is only available online via the (Windows only) Napster subscription service. Come January, they'll be able to stream the show live every Friday from the free of charge, on top of Radio 2's season of specials during the holiday period.
All things considered, not a bad Christmas present from the Old Country.
I used to love Bob Dylan (I also liked Tom Robinson, hero of Rock against Racism and diveristy).
But really love his music.
New Morning, Blood on the tracks. Desire. Street Legal and then I heard he was a thief (so was Shakespeare of course) according to Don Van Vliet alias Captain Beefheart, another teenage hero.
Mr derivative.
But then I read his biography and boy did my estimation of him fall.
They wanted him to be a leader a spokesman, but no, he was just Mr authentic and he wasn't going to play their game and be "Bob Dylan".
Unlike Tome Robinson he funked out.
Mr funk out, At the height of the civil rights movement he turns on the ethos, turns on Pete Seager and the left. If Woody Guthrie had been alive he would have spat on Bob Dylan as he bent down to tie the laces of Guthrie's shoes.
How morbid that Dylan was there sucking up Guthries life spirit as he died and transforming his passion and social concern into little interior plays going on in Dylan's mind.
Renaldo and Clara indeed!
Dylan surfed to fame on Greenwich's alternative wave and dared to use the civil rights movement for self promotion.
Art as meglomania. He wrote a song about his disease. The disease of conceit.
It was all about Dylan.
So give me Nina Simone, give me Gil Scott Heron (We don't want no reRons, Give me Jimi Hendrix and his Star Spangled Banner making a statement at Woodstock while Dylan hid out. Give me Cat Stevens even.
They say Wagner was a genius. They say T.S Eliot wrote good peotry.
I can appreciate them both despite their history and I can appreciate Dylan too. But as far as I'm concerned Dylan can join their club.
I ain't gonna fall for Dylan's charm no more!
## But really love his music. New Morning, Blood on the tracks. Desire.
Street Legal ##
Must be an age thing.
I stopped listning after 69 Nashville Skyline.I heard he became a Christian and I fell out with him and thought he was a fraud.
Some fraud ...
I could right now play 50 of his songs.In fact I will..
#but it aint him to blame...
.hes only a pawn in their game#
"But then I read his biography and boy did my estimation of him fall.
They wanted him to be a leader a spokesman, but no.
.."
hmmm.
Let me understand, you don't like him anymore because he was himself and not your idea of who he should be?
You don't like him anymore because he refused to be a marionette or a trained monkey?
You don't like him anymore because he was an autonomous human being with an agenda of his own?
You don't like him anymore because he was authentic to the vision of what his work on earth was? (we should all be so determined.)
You don't like him because he would not be swayed by other's opinions of who and what he *should* be/do/say?
You don't like him because he courageously followed hiw own path rather than being seduced by popularity and moving into uncharted territory time and time again? we should all have such courage.
Yes, my friend, you should apologize.
Nothing to win and nothing to lose.
From fixtures and forces and friends,
That hype you and type you,
That you must be exactly like them."
Did Zimmerman ever return his ex-friend's record collection?
The one with all the GREAT obscure folk and Black spiritual melodies in it, you know, like the song 'No More Auction Lot', the one that sounded a lot like 'Blowing in the Wind'?
Just wondering.
I have only been able to listen to his first ever "weather" show, but judging by that performance, Dylan is an interesting and proffesional presenter, with an exquisite taste in music.
Compare him to some of the bloody awful DJs on BBC music radio, with their inane local radio-ish gibbering, and I think listeners will plesently suprised, and rewarded.
Dylan's live performances are often considered poor these days, but as a wise old Sage of Radio, the world stands to gain a great deal from his twilight.
** MP3 streaming please BBC.
**
so Ishouldapologise thinks that Bob sold out? Do you want him to be a newspaper and sing editorials about George W Bush? If only, Bob's now in the realm of metapolitics, the wider ambitions, cycles and ends of history.
"Singer or savior, it was his to choose
Stars often fall, heroes go unsung
"So give me Nina Simone, give me Gil Scott Heron (We don't want no reRons, Give me Jimi Hendrix and his Star Spangled Banner making a statement at Woodstock while Dylan hid out. Give me Cat Stevens even."
1 Nina Simone.
Why ? What did she write ?
2 Gil Scott Heron.
Great song-writer once, crack-head now. Great message there..
3 Jimi Hendrix played that at Woodstock for no other reason than it felt good at the time. Magnificent as it was, those are the facts, read any biography.
4 Cat Stevens.
He still believes Salman Rudhsie should be beheaded. His stuff was better than Desolation Row though, eh ?
Dude.
Do you actually LIKE music ? Or do ya just affect the appropriate stances ?
Can you not pay homage to John Peel, whose last radio show in Germany was broadcast for the second anniversary of his untimely death, again, this week?
the correct protocol?
Does it make the slightest difference that John Peel was rich?
Adverts, jingles, nonsense of all type are ruining Radio.
Stop this, NOW!
I just re-read this and I think it is very unfair. In Dylan's autobiography he talks about seeking out Guthrie in hospital.
Rather than "sucking up Guthrie's life spirit" he describes spending time with a profoundly sick Guthrie (he was suffering from Huntington's Chorea, which leaves sufferers unable to move or speak), playing him his own songs on his guitar, out of what appears to be genuine awe for his inspiration.
Dylan described Guthrie as the "true voice of the American spirit". Reading this, I didn't feel he was taking that mantle for himself, rather that he felt honoured to have seen the dying of the light.
That Dylan chose not to be spokesman "for his generation" was, by his own admission, due to his horror at the media circus that threatened to engulf him and his young Family.
Guthrie himself was never subjected to such scrutiny, and we can only speculate whether or not he would have taken on the role of spokesperson, should it have been offered him. Would he too have chosen to protect his young family?
Perhaps.
Tom Robinson gets it right.
The BBC would do even better if they went into their archives and took out their Alexis Korner shows and then played these each week back to back with the Dylan shows.
This would enhance not only the BBC's reputation for having the best disk jockeys around, it would also lay out the proposition that music is a continuous joy made by musicians in the here and now.
Dylan plays stuff which you might hear when musicians are jamming around at two in the morning and someone plays a song they heard on a pirate 78 from the 1920s, in other words, the shows challenge the record rack measuring tools of the music industry.
Dylan is clearly attempting to remove 'time' and 'genre' from the distribution and hearing of music by creating a ''theme' which would sustain a playlist covering eighty years of recorded music.
It works most wondrously well in show number 30, 'Leftovers/Thanksgiving.'
Dylan has always been a record collector, has always played as a record collector with the live performance as a workshop. The greatest threat to his specific legacy as an artist is the ignorance induced by the playlists of the record industry and the industry's failure to educate, generation by generation, the next wave of fans.
This was clearly illustrated a year ago when he played Brixton. He played 'Blue Monday,' an obvious tribute to the people and the city of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The number had originally been recorded by Smiley Lewis, then taken up by Fats Domino who turned it into an international hit.
People at the gig asked what the song was, on the Dylan webpages theories were advanced that it was a new Dylan song. Here is a classic example of New Orleans 1950s r'n'b, performed by two of the city's greatest exponents, with a lyric referring explicitly to working class life, yet people are so deliberately maintained in isolation, kept away from the roots of their daily lives, it could be believed to be a new song.
It was obvious in the aftermath of that night the ignorance of the fan would sweep away the legacy of Dylan as a performer and songwriter.
That legacy would have nothing to be measured against.
Dylan at his best works on the edge of approximation. For Highway 61 and Blonde on Blonde he could have chosen from thirty blues guitarists better than Mike Bloomfield, he chose the most blues intoxicated white fan for the edge, neither this nor that, always new, always sharp, tradition a continuous window ledge on the present.
It's easy to think that 'Modern Times,' his latest work, is an advertisement for the radio shows, that the radio shows are an advertisement for 'Chronicles,' his writing, that 'Chronicles' points towards Blonde on Blonde, Tom Thumb's Blues, hear show number thirty, the leftovers, those numbers from shows one to twenty-nine which, allegedly, fell outside the space allocation of each show, you hear the best of music, from Charley Wright to Al Ferrier, from Billie Holliday to Dinah Washington, from Skeets McDonald to Fats Waller, from Little Sparrow to Cisco Houston, from 'Hallelujah I'm a Bum' to Allan Toussaint on piano behind Betty Harris, from 'Pie In The Sky' to 'Them There Eyes,' Blonde on Blonde no accident.
I don't underestimate Dylan. I compared him to Wagner and T.
S. Eliot. But he funked out.
He could have made a greater contribution to civil rights rights movement and social change in the USA, as Guthrie would have wanted (He claimed he was Guthrie's heir and he presented himself as such.) In that he was alier. He wasn't.
Why doesn't he sing that now! No, it was underwear ads he sang for and that about says it for him. There'snothing subversive of helpful about being commercial.
It's not a statement. It's just a dirty underwear ad.
Instead he became part of the sickening "me, me, me" culture, self absorbed celebrity culture.
Instead of singing "You Masters of War" in the face of George Bush he sings backing to quick and dirty underwear ads. And that about sums his politics up. And you don't think it will have an effect on his choice of music.
That's what he washed up fighting for eventually. That old hippy lie. First make peace with yourself.
As @Ithastobebeautiful said almost in a parody of that movement.
"You are your own parent, your own child and your own god. Grasp it and be proud.
" God with a very small "g" indeed.
Now who were the heirs to Guthrie? Those who cared about righting injustice and creating a fairer society.
Some through revolution:
And some through raising peoples conciousness about injustice and racism and standing at the head of the Civil Rights Movement in its time.
And anyone who defends Islam/Arab peoples in this day and age, however crazily, is doing more than someone who supports Israel (As Dylan does, and is a backroom NeoCon with more in common with Charlton Heston than either you or I would like to think.) for the cause of justice in the Middle East.
Here is Cat Stevens singing sweetly about Islam, as a peaceful charitable religion.
With minimum effort and just a little surfing, I managed to find these shows for download on the music blogs..
I'm not going to post the link because they will get clipped in 60 seconds, but the tunes are out there..
I am presuming that the BBC will only be streaming them as RealPlayer (if it all)_ and that they have just purchased the rights to the original 1-30 shows (no.
30 being the "leftovers" show. So I'm wondering how much presenting Dylan's got left in him / how many he signed up to etc)..
It will be nice to hear these on DAB in my kitchen, but not really a revolution. Isn't this story just a BBC press release, masquerading as news?
Stil nice to have a thread on a divisive artist like Dylan.
Interesting direction for CIF*.
*(That's enough TLAs! :D )
Cultic worship of a singer with feet of clay.
No, we aren't talking about Robbie Williams. Bob Dylan. People like Dylan diverted the powerful waters of social movements into the stagnant middle class back waters of half baked philosophical introversion using the powerful mercurial tools of their ability to use language.
If they were magicians, as Dylan suggested with his shamanic face painting in concerts in the seventies, then he used his magic in a selfish way.
His flirtation with divinity, his own possible divinity and that of Jesus and the Jewish prophets and even Apollo (who he seems to see as equals) is the inevitable consequence of disappearing up his own fundament and then travelling down to his roots with this radio DJ thing.
As for being right on politically, I will always remember his song Mozambique, where he wrote how much fun it was to be there in the middle of an anti-colonial struggle against the Portugese.
As I said before, it's hard to go along with someone, however brilliant they may be, who travels like a good "poputchiki" along the same road as Charlton Heston.
As for Israel and being Jewish. I am sure he couldn't give a toss about the suffering of the Palestinians.
That's the kind of creative "poet of a generation" you want singing in your living room.
Not me, not in his current incarnation.
Thankyou, ItHasToBeBeautiful.
I hate all this fan shit. It IS the listener that is vital, within himself/herself, just listening and giving the music its meaning, maybe singing along, maybe sharing with friends, hopefully off-key and human.
I always feel sorry for these 'star' types - what a burden.
Dont be a fan or a star - be a mensch, as Dylan might say, if he hadnt been twisted by fools who wanted heroes.
Get a cheap guitar and make up songs for your kids - dont be a sap.
DITHERS: "Dont be a fan or a star - be a mensch, as Dylan might say, if he hadnt been twisted by fools who wanted heroes.
"
RESPONSE: But that's just it, Dylan rejected hero-worship and all that came along with it...
all one need do is listen to some of the interviews he gave in the mid-60s.
In his search for identity as a young man in the early 60s, Dylan flirted with the civil rights movement through his work and with his time. By 1966, he'd become mature enough and enlightened enough to pursue his own path.
By moving to Woodstock and dropping out of public life, Bob became exactly who he wanted to be. How can we condemn him for this?
Tonyellis, some very poignant commentary.
He was the biggest star the US had at the time and they erased him from their history books. How many Americans have heard of one of their own greatest singers and artists? Hardly any.
Why? Because he sang songs that actually meant something that could possibly, in a month of Sundays, be interpreted as being in favour of social justice.
A bit of a far cry from interpreting Dylan singing "Blue Monday" as a protest against the treatment of African Americans after Katrina.
Now THAT's what I call in the eye of the beholder.
The capacity of human beings for self deception is limitless.
And yes, @Tonyellis I sit on a recycled chair from our local Catholic church, but no, I am not alone and I haven't got much free time which is why my wife keeps shouting "Leave that bloody blog, you're addicted to it.
" She also accuses me of betraying Bob Dylan.
Tonyellis,
Not ironic criticism at all. I thought you nailed it on the head.
...
and cleverly so.
That opinion is only reinforced by IShouldApologize's next post, where he glorifies the likes of Paul Robeson, who was a complete toady of Joseph Stalin's and looked with a blind eye at the murder of millions in the Soviet Union.
Ivan - Thanks for the nice words.
I hope you're ready in case they start on Leonard Cohen.
Ishouldapologise - you're right: it's a good article. If you thought so too, maybe you're just having problems allowing your heroes to become human.
Falzman(?) - you sound so desperate, I've decided to help you.
1.
Switch on your radio and fiddle around with the dial - I tried this recently for 24 hours and didn't once hear Dylan. On 6 of the stations, I didn't hear anything older than 2002 (hope that doesn't sound to ancient for you).
2.
Go out. Apart from the few discos that specialise in D S evenings, most have DJs fighting for a rep as the owner of the newest sounds. Also clothes shops.
..
3.
Buy a guitar, sax, stylophone or computer and drag the rest of us into whatever century you're currently living in.
4. Have you heard cocorosie?
Cute and quirky.
Robeson was a black man in a racist country. His people were poor and oppressed and Socialism where the wealth is shared seemed like a fair and rational system of government to Robeson.
He also spoke for many other socialists and people around the world, from the people struggling for freedom in Soth Africa to the persecuted aborigines in Australia to the Welsh miners in the valleys.
He was persecuted and hounded by the US authorities and erased as efficiently as in any communist purge.
His actions were motivated by the high moral ground and he made a great sacrifice for the well being of his people.
Dylan is not fit to kiss his posterior.
Yep Suitone's suggestion that it would be marvellous to replay the Alexis Korner programmes is bang-on, and I'll buttonhole the head of programmes at BBC 6 Music and do my damndest to sell him the idea.
Alexis became my first mentor after he visited Finchden Manor as an Old Boy in the late 60s; his advice, kindness and vast knowledge of music have stayed with me all my life.
Ivan - FWIW am with you on Blood On The Tracks and the much underrated John Wesley Harding - but there's a lot of newer music by hungrier artists out there.
But like the blog says, the interesting thing about Theme Time Radio Hour isn't Dylan's career, music, politics or personality. It's the choice of music, that looks so promising - as Tomaszek (who's heard it) confirms.
Sorry tho, Tomas: the BBC can't ever provide mp3 versions of its music programmes because of the prohibitive cost of clearing the copyrights. But (whisper it) you can always use an application like Audio Hijack to turn the BBC's online streams into saveable audio files, even tho the quality's not as good.
ISHOULDAPOLOGIZE: "He was persecuted and hounded by the US authorities and erased as efficiently as in any communist purge.
"
RESPONSE: No offense, but that statement is emblematic of an utter disregard for scope and proportion.
Do you actually believe that in the 1940s and early 50s, a Soviet dissident who denounced his country and embraced the enemy would have avoided physical liquidation?
Robeson suffered a degree of censure, but he was never deprived of life and liberty.
...
and he continued attacking his country with verve as the years went by.
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